Jon Favreau Says Pixar Is Helping With Magic Kingdom

Jon Favreau has been keeping busy. In addition to reprising his role as Happy Hogan in Iron Man 3 - which is shooting now - he has also recently lined up a part in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street and is prepping to direct an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Jersey Boys (about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons). But just because he's taking care of so much right now doesn't mean that he's lost interest in the other projects he's been attached to for a while. Right before making the decision not to return as director for Iron Man 3, Favreau attached himself to the Disney theme park movie Magic Kingdom, which is still in development. We haven't heard much about the movie for a while now, but apparently they are still hard at work on it and Favreau says they are bringing in some of the most creative people in Hollywood to work on it.

Crave Online was able to catch up with the filmmaker recently and he revealed that not only is Magic Kingdom still happening, they have brought in the men and women from Pixar to help develop the story. Said Favreau, “What we’ve been doing is writing a script, going up to Pixar, meeting with the brain trust, coming back down, bringing on artists, story editors and putting it together as though it were an animated film so that by the time we actually film it, we’ll have a rock solid story." The director says that his priority with the movie is to make sure it's done right and that they take their time instead of rushing it into production. "I want it to be one shot one kill, like a sniper," the director said. "I want to make sure this movie’s right in the crosshairs that we can really knock it out of the park, so to speak."

Cool as it sounds, it's not an unusual thing for Disney movies to get consultation from the folks up at Pixar. Some of you may remember that Brad Bird and Michael Arndt did some work onTron Legacy prior to that film's release. After all, if you have that kind of resource, why not use it? Favreau is a talented filmmaker, so it's nice to see that he's making sure that Magic Kingdom is perfect before jumping in.